The best music that I've heard is so deeply intertwined with the soul and
the spirit and the experiences of the musician that's playing it that,
once again, the idea of idiom becomes obsolete. That's what I respond to
the most: a musician who's playing the music that he or she loves so much
that they would die if they didn't play that way, matched with music
that's maybe just a little bit too hard for them. That's an important
element. Musicians need the feeling of challenge. That's one of the
reasons why, when you hear jazz guys trying to play rock & roll, it sounds
funny, because it's not "the thing" for them. But that's a whole other
subject [laughs]